NIGERIA Football Federation President Amaju Pinnick has revealed that the body approached one of the world’s most famous coaches, Jose Mourinho, to handle the Super Eagles.
Mourinho is currently managing Italian club AS Roma, but that did not stop the NFF from making an offer to the former Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Manchester United manager, according to Pinnick.
Austin Eguavoen is at present the interim head coach of the Super Eagles after recently replacing Gernot Rohr, but Pinnick hinted the former captain still might not lead the team to the Africa Cup of Nations in January as the NFF could name a new boss in the next few days.
Pinnick also confirmed that another Portuguese coach Jose Peseiro, who resigned as head coach of Venezuela in September over unpaid wages, and Serbian Mladen Krstajic were also on a shortlist.
“The emphasis on the new coach is discipline. We will look at his antecedents on discipline,” Pinnick said during a meeting with sports journalists in Lagos on Wednesday.
“We will also look at how hungry he is to win trophies because if he is hungry it supersedes so many things and if he wants to win he will instil discipline. We will look at all these things but I cannot make a pronouncement emphatically because I will be undermining my executive committee.
“So, until my executive committee comes out within the next week or so to say this is the name, because the technical committee has to bring their presentation to the executive committee.
“But we have spoken to three top coaches and Peseiro, whose name has been going around, is one of the coaches and I can tell you he is a top coach.”
Krstajic is however out of the running after accepting another offer in Israel.
“We also talked to Krstajic but after talking to him he got a job with a top club in Israel, Maccabi Tel Aviv,” Pinnick added.
“You can see these are coaches that are hungry and ready to succeed with Nigeria. They are people that we know are ready to face the challenge from Nigerians.
“They are coaches who the players can’t be bigger than and I believe we are doing everything we can and that’s why we interface with the ministry on every level.
“Of course I am not going to tell you we didn’t talk to Mourinho because we did and the minister also talked to Mourinho, and there is nothing wrong with it.”
The NFF President expects the new coach to handle the team at the AFCON finals in Cameroon if he is named before the tournament kicks off on 9 January.
He said: “If the coach will give us the Nations Cup, he will be drafted in immediately. I am not going to tell you that it will be later, because of what essence is the recruitment? If the executive committee says yes and we are ready, what are we waiting for?
“When I spoke with one of the coaches on Tuesday, he was already scouting our players and was telling me things I didn’t even know about our players. It was quite impressive and he told me the strength of each player and he took me off guard. We are not going to experiment and if he can win the Nations Cup, no problem.
“We know Eguavoen can do it, but we also want someone who can do it better. If we are unable to sign him soon, then we will work with the current team. But I am not going to tell you that if we have him signed today, he is not going to lead the team to the AFCON.”
With Mourinho apparently way out of the NFF’s league and Krstajic off to Israel, the obvious choice appears to be Peseiro.
The much-travelled 61-year-old has coached two national teams in the past, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, as well as a bunch of clubs across three continents.
He was head coach at FC Porto, Braga and Sporting Lisbon in his native Portugal, Panathinaikos in Greece, Rapid Bucharest in Romania, Al Ahly in Egypt and Al Wahda in the United Arab Emirates among many other clubs.
His biggest achievements are leading Sporting to the UEFA Cup (now Europa League) final in 2004/2005, winning the Egyptian Premier League title with Al Ahly in 2015/2016 and the Portuguese League Cup with Braga in 2012/2013.
